So if I declare this an open thread, and no one posts any comments, how pathetic would that make me look?

After about four takes, I finally got the podcast satisfactory enough to send it off to Bruce.

Then Tig meowed toward the end of it.

I’m leaving it in. You’ll have to find it yourselves. Shouldn’t be too hard.

The good news: Gilmore Girls has at least one more year. The bad news: Gilmore Girls has maybe only one more year. The bad news: The WB-UPN merger has put the kibosh on the new Sherman-Palladino show that was going to be modeled on the old Hepburn/Tracy films. The good news: If Gilmore Girl ends next year, they may be able to shop that show around for the following season. Here’s hoping they find as good a cast as they did for Gilmore Girls.

The future of “Gilmore Girls” is a convoluted plot itself. The Palladinos say they’re genuinely undecided about whether they will continue with the series after this season — alarming news for fans of a series that, more than most, reflects the strong sensibilities of their creators.

One factor that may have driven them away — a pilot for a new series, a romantic comedy, that would have been filmed in New York — is no longer in the picture. It was scrapped with the WB’s dissolution.

The Palladinos are making plans for a cliffhanger ending to this season (wedding? no wedding?) and for the show to run without them in the fall, just in case.

Graham said the signs point to one more season after this one; the production company is making sure to add another year for people who had six-year contracts. Graham said that’s when she’d like to move on, citing the show’s workload.

Yeah, and Alexis Bledel is starting to build up quite the movie career for herself; she was in two or three movies that came out in 2005. But hey, at least we have one more year. Well, and the rest of this one.

Stupid Olympics. No WB shows on NBC while they’re on. By the time Gilmore Girls hits Richmond again, it’ll be summer rerun season. Good thing I have friends and family taping for me.

I’m so tired of the crappy news right now. I’d much rather talk about the movies I rented over the past week. If only I had known; I’d have watched them in reverse order and gotten them back to Blockbuster a lot sooner. Well, I still made the bring-’em-or-buy-’em deadline.

The Legend of Zorro: Oh. My. God. Marital troubles in Zorro land, impossible, explosive stunts, and the flattest of villains since the bad old days of the Wild West. Not even Catherine Zeta-Jones and Antonio Banderas can save this bomb. Stopped watching after half an hour.

Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy: It wasn’t bad. But it wasn’t good. And since I read the book, I turned off the movie after half an hour or so. That’s my new policy: If the movie isn’t good, I’m not wasting two hours of my life. King Kong taught me that. (I still cannot stop being pissed at that stupid skating scene in Central Park. Please, someone suck those memories out of my brain. Please?)

Must Love Dogs: Dingdingdingding! We have a winner here! In spite of a few slow stretches, overall, the movie was funny and sweet (though it tended towards a bit overblown at times, and has a pretty stupid ending), and, well, yes, it’s a chick flick. But I like chick flicks. This one leaves you smiling. And I think I’m finally out of love with John Cusack. He finally lost that baby face! Plus, the film has Stockard Channing, and I love Stockard Channing. She needs to get on a good series again. Best team-up ever was Channing and Dianne Wiest in Practical Magic (another great film that didn’t deserve the reviews it got). Hm. Maybe I should start a meme: Favorite chick flicks. Over the weekend.

The Island: Another one well worth the two-plus hours. You get Ewan McGregor twice. Okay, so it’s a Michael Bay film, and it has a lot of mindless violence, and man, McGregor left a trail of death and destruction behind him, but it was fun, and action films are supposed to be fluffy. When’s the last time you attended a thinking man’s action film? Yes, I know — never. Don’t look too hard into the premise, because like most SF/Action films, it falls apart on close examination. Just think of it as the 21st century Logan’s Run, without the age limitations.

There you go. If you haven’t seen those films, don’t bother with two of them. But I really liked the last two.

Hey, if you’ve seen a movie that got bad reviews that didn’t deserve them, tell us about it in the comments.

Yet another article about Hamas’ intransigence, this time by the UPI:

In an interview with Cairo’s mass-circulation daily al-Ahram to be published Saturday, Meshaal said Hamas might change its position on peace negotiations with Israel if the latter declares readiness to pull out from Palestinian territories it captured in 1967, including East Jerusalem.

However, Meshaal reiterated Hamas’ refusal to recognize Israel.

In the interview, a copy of which was obtained by United Press International, Meshaal said, “negotiations with Israel are of two types, one related to normal day-to-day issues in view of the entwinement of these matters between the two sides, and we have no objection to deal with Israel on that matter.”

He said Hamas is also ready for security coordination with Israel, notably on the movement of Palestinians, whether for work or medical treatment within the framework of daily life activity, but refuses any coordination for Israel security activities such as hunting down and arresting militants.

“As for the second type of negotiations, notably political talks, we believe it is futile for the time being,” Meshaal said.

“Negotiations before Israel’s withdrawal from occupied Palestinian territories will be tantamount to a gratis offer,” he added.

Meshaal pointed out that the ball is now in Israel’s court “because it us up to the Jewish state to withdraw from the Palestinian territories until the 1967 border, which is the official Arab ceiling, recognize Jerusalem as the capital of the Palestinians and acknowledge the right of return of Palestinian refugees.”

Of course there is no mention of stopping terrorism, because Hamas’ name for it is “resistance,” and therefore, it is legitimate.

Yeah, I can just see Israel coordinating with Hamas who gets to enter Israel. “The line for those carrying bomb belts starts on the left. No, my left, idiots!”

Shyeah. And these are the people that Spain, Russia, and Turkey think that Israel should deal with.